In football, there is no greater sound than the ball itself hitting the back of the net. It is also a great sound, meaning that a goal has been scored, barring an assistant referee’s flag or a Video Assistant Referee’s intervention. What few people ever stop to think about, though, is when the football net actually came into being.
Whilst it would be tempting to think that it has just always been there, the truth of the matter is a little more complicated than that. It was actually invented in 1889 by a man called John Alexander Brodie, who was a civil engineer with a lot more to his name.
Brodie’s Early Life
John Alexander Brodie was born on the first of June 1858 in the Shropshire market town of Bridgnorth. His father, as you might have guessed from his name, was a Scot who came from the village of Kettins to work in England. When he grew up, Brodie served an apprenticeship whilst working in the engineering department of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in 1875. He worked under the Chief Engineer, George Fosbery Lyster and in 1879 gained a Whitworth Scholarship as well as a Canning Scholarship, which allowed him to study at Owen’s College.
He studied mathematics during his time at what is now part of the University of Manchester, moving on to work at the office of Sir Joseph Whitworth in the wake of his graduation. Not long after that, he began working for Liverpool City Engineer’s Department, leaving there in order to set up his own private consultancy. As part of that, he briefly moved to Bilbao in Spain, not returning to the United Kingdom until 1884. Brodie was a keen sportsman, playing both rugby and golf and also enjoying watching football when he was given the chance to do so, heading to both Anfield and Goodison Park.
Inventing the Football Net
It was whilst Brodie was at the home of Everton that he came up with the idea of the football goal net. Prior to that moment, there was nothing to stop the ball when it crossed the goal line, which could often lead to consternation if a goal wasn’t awarded. Whilst at Goodison Park, Brodie saw a near riot when Everton thought that they had scored a goal, only for nothing to be awarded to the Blues. He realised at that moment that there was immense value in attaching a net onto the goalposts, which would catch the ball and act, in Brodie’s words, as a ‘pocket’ for it.
#Liverpool OTD – 1889: John Alexander Brodie patents his new invention…….. goal nets ⚽️🥅⚽️
— liverpool1207.bsky.social (@liverpool1207.bsky.social) 28 November 2024 at 12:13
In 1889, Brodie entered a patent for the net, saying that it was for ‘improvements in or applicable to goals used in football, lacrosse, or other like games’. It was an invention that all but changed the game, soon spreading from England to other parts of the world and remaining in place ever since. Such was the importance of Brodie’s achievement, in fact, that he was given a blue plaque, which was positioned on his Victorian detached villa on Ullet Road. In fact, his plaque, along with one for the inventor of Meccano and Dinky toys, Frank Hornby, were the first two outside of London.
More to His Life Than Football Nets
Whilst football nets will arguably go down as the invention from Brodie that most people will have seen in effect at one point or another, there was a lot more to his life than just that. Not long after returning to Liverpool in 1898, for example, he suggested improvements to the road layout that included the first ring road and a dual carriageway with a space for trams in the middle. That is why the likes of Menlove Avenue and Queens Drive in Liverpool are so wide. He was also an important voice in the use of pre-fabricated housing technology, allowing for houses to be built quickly and cheaply.
A man who was interested in town planning, Brodie was invited to India twice in order to help both select the site for and create the plans of New Delhi. In terms of an engineering achievement, however, there is little question that Brodie’s most important creation was the Mersey Tunnel. Brodie and Sir Basil Mott worked on the tunnel, which runs from the centre of Liverpool through to Birkenhead on the Wirral, being completed in 1934. When the tunnel was constructed, it was the longest such underwater road tunnel anywhere in the world, which remained the case for 24 years.
If you ever happen to be travelling from the Wirral to Liverpool for a football match, therefore, you can marvel at one of Brodie’s creations before being thankful for another.